This space is for friends, family and sworn enemies to convene, commiserate and bask in the dim glow of our most deficient public figures. Hopefully we can have some laughs along the way. If we don't, it's your fault.

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

The Baby Morpher

Recently, as we were looking at one of the 3D images taken of our unborn little boy, Mrs. Blackwell commented that she thought our baby looked like me.

As a guy, you can't help but be at least slightly excited at the prospect of your son looking like you. But, upon viewing the picture more closely, I wasn't sure that I agreed with her. While they're pretty amazing, 3D machines don't produce the sharpest of images.

Perhaps his nose and his mouth looked like mine, perhaps not. How can you tell? It's pretty much like a Rorschach ink blot test; you see what you want to see. Images generated by straight up, old school ultrasounds aren't much better.

He'll get my look of frustration and his mother's expression of
resigned patience.

But, as we draw closer to the big day and this little guy grows larger and larger, he is coming into focus.

His cheeks are filling out. His feet are big (for that, I will take credit). His eyes are open and wide. But, ultimately, we know we won't have a clear picture of what our little baby will look like until he's here.

So, for now, we wait.

Unless off course you can't wait. In which case you use completely unproven photo morphing technology which will combine pictures of you and your better half to produce a picture of what your baby will look like.

So, that's what I did.

As you can see from the pic above, Mrs. Blackwell is striking even while looking thoroughly underwhelmed. Talking about how you look is dicey territory, so I'll leave that alone except to say, I've got two eyes, a nose and a mouth with teeth.

First, I understand, that you love your kid no matter what and you keep your fingers crossed that, physically, they're on an even playing field with the rest of the world. So, as I fed two pictures into the baby picture morpher, I kept my expectations realistic.

That said, I shot too high.

The first result was a long-haired, hippy-like humanoid, with skin so pasty white, it looked like it was weened in a cave. His eyes were set so far apart he would need his glasses custom made.

The second effort was only slightly better. This one appeared to be a toddler who, strangely, looked old enough to get a tattoo, or perhaps give one.

Babies are all supposed to be cute. I've yet to see a non-cute one but, thanks to Seinfeld, I do believe it's possible they exist.

So, I tried a third set of pictures and this is what I got.

I have no idea who's eyes those are. The mouth is totally foreign. That nose?

And as far as the hair goes, let me collect myself for a moment. Ahemm. I'll only say, I'm sure Larry Fine isn't an ancestor for either of us so that one is lost on me too.

After looking at this picture for a bit, it struck me: what if it's right? What if the pictures I fed in were correct this time and this was exactly how our little guy will look? What then?

Well, then we'd home school him and send him to the monastery as soon as we could. Kidding. Considerations like these don't always reveal things we like about ourselves. But they do reveal truths and things we can work on. For me, the lesson was pretty clear and one I'd already learned.

Throughout life we all meet people we think are pretty, or beautiful and then they open their mouths and that impression is laid to waste. But a beautiful person is a beautiful person, and it's got nothing to do with their looks.